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Lengua y ritos del Palo Monte Mayombe: Dioses cubanos y sus fuentes africanas. Jesús Fuentes Guerra and Armin Schwegler, Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2005.258 pp.
The monograph, co-written by the Swiss, Armin Schwegler, and the Cuban, Jesús Fuentes Guerra, is divided into two major parts: a general introduction and a linguistic analysis. The first half of the book provides a general introduction to the language and belief system of Regla de Palo Monte, otherwise known as Regla Conga, one of four main African derived religious traditions in Cuba. The authors trace the historical roots of the religion in Central Africa and follow the slave trade of the Kikongo-speaking Bakongo from the lower Congo to the island. They collect present-day ethnographic data from practitioners in and around the central Cuban city of Cienfuegos to contextualize the religion in relation to other afro-Cuban traditions, such as the often-studied Regla de Ocha, or Santería. In particular, the focus is on Regla Mayombe, the most commonly practiced tradition or "sub-creed" of Palo Monte in Cuba.
This first section of the monograph offers a comprehensive review of the literature on Regla de Palo Monte and seems to be in dialogue with the seminal investigations of Lydia Cabrera. However, in addition to citing her collective body of...